iNethack2 HD Review

@

The @ symbol has a lot of meaning for me and quite a few older gamers. Long before it was a part of user names on Twitter or even widely known as part of everyones email addresses, it was your player character in one of the best games ever, Rogue (1980). Yes, THE Rogue that is referred to when someone says (or writes) that a game is Rogue-like. Rogue begat Hack (1985) and Mike Stephenson made NetHack (1987). All of them share the same premise of an adventurer trying to retrieve the Amulet of Yendor from deep in a dangerous dungeon. They all sported the same ASCII graphics with the @ as your character you moved through the dungeon. If you haven't heard of them, they are the precursor to games like Diablo.

iNethack was the original version of NetHack to grace the App Store, but it was removed in 2014. It is now back as iNethack2 due to the hard work of Future Shock Software to update the code and get it back out there for players. As a free download, there is no reason why this isn't already on your device. It is compatible with iPhone, iPod and iPad. Or play the latest version of NetHack online here.

Pick a class, any class

The basics of the game are simple. You tap the screen in the direction you want to go. Double-tap and you move in that direction until you run into something or a monster shows up. Run into a monster and you attack it with your weapon. Have a ranged weapon, use the correct command letter in the command bar at the bottom to throw something (or zap if you have a wand or spell) at the monster. Kill it and you gain experience. Don't and you likely are going to die. To help you in your travels you start the game with a pet (kitten or puppy) who can also fight for you in some cases. Warning, your pet can die. You will die. Horribly and often. All of the Rogue-likes share one thing, death is easy and permanent. With the right settings chosen you might even run into your ghost in the dungeon one day.

The Quest

DawnHack tileset and UI

Sounds simple right? It is and it isn't. You have to manage your hit points, collect enough food not to starve, and solve puzzles to make it all the way to the bottom of the dungeon and get the Amulet let alone make it back out again. I have been playing for 30 years and I have never won. I have never even had the Amulet in hand. Even using wiki pages or downloaded guides, I have never ever even been close. It is that hard. I have also never stopped playing. It is that good a game.

Sometimes you take a risk and a Water demon crushes you.

So, dungeon crawl, permadeath and deep gameplay are all here. You choose between a number of character classes and races at the beginning of the game. Your choice determines your starting stats and general equipment. Rangers start with ranged weapons and food, Wizards with wands, rings and spells, etc. Your pet can help you find out if anything you find in the dungeon is cursed or not (a pet will only reluctantly step on a cursed item). Your pet can even help you steal from shops you find along your journeys - you just have to train him or her to do so (by throwing them food when they do something you like). Wish for the right thing and you can have Excalibur in your hand, polymorph objects to change them into better ones, use Genocide scrolls to get rid of extremely dangerous monsters like the Basilisk. Pray to your god for help. Eat what you kill to stay alive. It is all up to you and all in the game.

Here's a death. A sad pathetic one.

Worried that ASCII, old school graphics aren't your thing, you can change it in your settings to something more modern. (Exit the game, go to Settings on your device, find iNethack2, scroll down to Tileset to find a new one. You can also change your character name there or make other adjustments to the gameplay. The game has in-game help to get you started on what the commands do. Don't forget to use s to search as there are hidden traps and doors all over the place.

Here's a better death.

Here's everything I killed on my dungeon crawl.

Don't take my word for it. iNethack2 and its predecessors are some of the best games ever. They are free due to the awesome work of very smart people making them available that way. Go get a copy or play online. You won't regret it. iNethack2 gets 5 Mick Happies. If you like it, buy a copy of Future Shock Studios' Interplanetary Drift to say thank you for making it available on iOS again.